Summer Molt

Finally!! It is officially summer in Seattle. A blissful, yet sticky, 90-95^oF. For a couple days now, we’ve been in the middle of a massive heat wave, but I haven’t seen too many people complaining. On the contrary, after the Fourth of July, where it was a record low of 65^oF, everyone’s been walking around and sweating happiness. Lovely.


Today, I took advantage of my Saturday and decided to do some errands that’d put me riding all over the city. Scootering in this weather has been absolutely addictive. The warm air blowing on your face, curving around your arms and legs—it feels like sinking into a hot tub for the first time, or the settling peace of sipping tea after a skin-numbing day of skiing. Manned with my new backpack, I mobbed the roads of Capitol Hill and the U-District, selling old clothes to start building up cash for Europe. After three consignment shops and one vintage clothing store, I totaled a meager $21.00. Dejected, and feeling somewhat dehumanized, I came home and threw the remaining of my clothes into a box for next week.

This July, I will become Yard Sale Queen, having two sales planned in my future and numerous Craigslist ads to manage before I move home at the end of the month. So far, I haven’t really accumulated what I thought I would when I started this plan: my ad for my twelve-year-old Gemeinhardt 2SP isn’t getting much attention, and apparently, my wardrobe doesn’t have a very high retail factor. But, regardless, I decided this morning to throw the rest of my clothing in with the other sale items; maybe someone will buy them.

I am doing pretty well, in terms of fundraising. The good news is that I will meet my goal and then some. It’s the Swedish unemployment rate that’s scaring me. Even with my skills in the research field, there’s a chance I may not find a job in Sweden to fund my education there completely. Hopefully, that won’t be the case, but it’s always good to prepare.

By the end of the month, I hope to have stripped myself down—either through sale or donation—to only a few items of serious importance and practicality. It’s funny: so many people speak of the positive benefits of purging yourself of material goods. “They don’t matter,” they say, “they’re not what’s important”—and they’re right. But regardless, I was dreading this stage in my planning: I liked my life, I liked my things. I liked the range of choices I had and the feeling of self-sustainability. But the fact of the matter is—and I had to train myself several times to focus on this point—that there are far better things in life that can sustain you than what you can tangibly hold.

My final acknowledgement of this finally came to me last week. In starting my ads on Craigslist, it became apparent to me how easily I could again obtain all the things that I wanted to keep. My Honda scooter, my Peugeot mixte, my microwave, baking supplies, dresses, tables, DVDs—all of it, I could get back. The sentimental value was just something I was putting on these objects: all they were, really, were things that I needed to serve a purpose. I realized how silly it was to for a pilot to keep a car when he really needed a plane.

But, as if that wasn’t enough, I also came to another, more unsettling, realization. My sentimental values were arbitrary. Seriously. Think back in your memory to two years ago. Does that tea set you bought jump first into your mind? Do those shoes? Does that toaster oven, your car, or TV set just appear right before your eyes? No. In my empty young mind, all I see are people, places, feelings, lessons learned—but not that scarf I got for two dollars, or that book I thought was great. I realized those types of things are not objects for motile life. They’re nice, but I wasn’t going to remember them.

Ever since, I have been writing down all the things I use on a daily basis over a single week: these are the things I will take with me. The list is remarkably short. But I’m okay with it.

It’s just another proof of principle that to take action on good advice is often harder than you think.